RE: T rex bites your bum

[John Hunt <john.bass@ntlworld.com>]

Sorry Thomas!

Perhaps I should have qualified it like:  I have noticed that the long
metatarsals of tyrannosaurs are often overlooked in arguments concerning
limb proportions on popular TV shows by proponents of the view that T. rex
was a strolling obligate scavenger.

Is that better?


-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. [mailto:tholtz@geol.umd.edu] 
Sent: 24 May 2005 14:05
To: john.bass@ntlworld.com; DragonsClaw@gmx.net; 'DML'
Subject: RE: T rex bites your bum

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> John Hunt
>
> There has been much speculation regarding the speed or otherwise of
> tyrannosaurs but I have not noticed much research into the locomotive
> abilities of the potential prey.  What were the relative proportions of
> femur, tibia and metatarsals of hadrosaurs (I have noticed that the long
> metatarsals of tyrannosaurs are often overlooked in arguments concerning
> limb proportions)?

[Sputtering out his morning coffee...] OVERLOOKED!?!?!?!?!?

Sorry, sorry, no reason I should take this personally... (arctometatarsus
function, big morphometrics of theropod limb paper in JVP
back in the 1990s, papers on theropod predation in the 2000s making just
this point, talks at DinoFest on just this point, chapter
in Dinosauria II, freaking KID'S BOOK on the subject, grumble, grumble,
grumble, grumble, grumble...).

(Yeah, and Eric Snively and Greg Paul need some credit here, too...)

Okay, for the hadrosaurid limb proportions: tibiae scale to femora slightly
under tyrannosaurids, metatarsals WAY under
tyrannosaurids.

Further paper on precisely this topic should be coming your way after the T.
rex symposium this summer.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
        Mailing Address:
                Building 237, Room 1117
                College Park, MD  20742

http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796